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Showing posts from March, 2016

Traveling to Improve Your Mental Health

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By: Nate Webster, IMH Nothing has taught me more about life than when I traveled abroad. Something amazing happens when you get out of the familiarity of your life to somewhere new. New foods, new people and new sights just have a way of changing the way you see the world. Going to new places and seeing news things does wonders for our mental and emotional wellbeing. In my own travels, a few things have stuck with me and I hope they can convince you to take some time abroad as well. 1.       We always have a lot to learn: A professor once told me, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” A simple adage with a big point. You can feel like you know a lot but chances are there’s a whole lot you don’t know. Most of us see education as a season of our life that we’ve thankfully graduated from, but being a life long learner is the biggest key to success. During his career Thomas Edison was quoted saying that he didn’t fail a 1000 times, he just found a 1000 ways to NOT make a lig

Advice From a Friend Going Through Chemo

By: Christine Hammond, LMHC I must admit that when my friend shared she had cancer, it evoked vast amounts of fear mostly because my understanding was lacking in this area. But now with the advancement of many medications, surgical procedures, types of chemotherapy or radiation, various treatment options, and many cases of cancer survivors, many forms of cancer are no longer as intimidating. Yet walking through this with my friend for the first time was daunting. While each experience with cancer is unique, having a base of what is nice, hard and informative to a patient is very useful. Here are a couple of tips from my friend, the conqueror. Some nice things that happened during treatment: Friends and family traveled from out of town to spend time and just sit. The meals offered to the entire family were a huge blessing and an enormous help. She was fortunate enough to have a supportive spouse take on additional responsibilities and give large amounts of grace. The

The Five Do's and Don'ts After a Relationship Ends

By: Matthew Sandford, LMHC When a marriage or relationship is over there is of course a lot of heartache, upheaval, and a strong longing for normalcy. The longing to not be in pain and to have stability again can lead anyone towards some poor choices. Let’s look us some of those decisions that can turn out to be detrimental or damaging, and then I’ll offer some suggestions for healthier alternatives. 1.      Using Substances Putting something in one’s body to alter their mood and enable them to go numb or avoid pain is an approach that has been around for thousands of years.  And although it provides absolutely nothing productive in the long term, it continues to be the go-to coping strategy for many. Look, if you have say one or two bad nights in which you cope by getting buzzed, it isn’t the end of the world (as long as you don’t drive or do something stupid, I guess I mean do something else stupid or dangerous). The problem is that when this approach seems to help ward o

Improving a Complex Emotional Life

By: Nate Webster, IMH Our emotions are more like their own living creature than many of us would like to admit. We have to feed them and let them out and we also need to listen to them and give them time to vent. But many of us have a love-hate relationship with our emotions. Sometimes our emotions awkwardly make messes all over life, and other times they feel so locked up in a chest we’re not sure how we’ll ever pry them out! Well, many things contribute to what I like to call a “Complex Emotional Life” or CEL for short. Below are four behaviors that may be keeping you in your CEL. Your emotions aren’t a hurdle, they’re a compass: If you want to get out of your CEL, start paying more attention to what your feelings may be saying instead of trying so hard to make them go away. If you’re always anxious, think about what may be scaring you? Maybe you find yourself sad, reflect on how your needs are not being met. If you treat your negative feelings more like a compass that may b

Why Are There So Many Narcissists?

By: Christine Hammond, LMHC Narcissism seems to be on the rise. Teachers are frustrated by children who believe they are entitled to an excellent grade for substandard work. Parents are annoyed by teens who believe they are wiser than their elders. Employers are aggravated by employees who believe the rules don’t apply to them. Spouses are shocked when the charming person they married turns into a raging bully. “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” This was written approximately 400 B.C. by the Athenian philosopher Socrates. Yet many would believe it intended for this generation. So why does it seem like there are so many narcissists? Here are a couple of possible explanations. 1.        Social Media. The mass influence of social media has introduced a perfect narcissistic breeding ground. A person can be anything and say anything they want without ever having to

5 Reasons Behind Road Rage and Other Out of Proportion Reactions

By Matt W. Sandford, LMHC So, I was driving into work today and I took some back roads so to speak. On the way a car in front of me had signaled to turn right and slowed down and then slowed all the way to a stop, without turning, so that they were sitting in the lane in front of me. I did what seemed wise, since no cars were coming and chose to go around them. But, as I went past the driver of this car became very upset at me and laid on his horn. He continued to stay there in the road and fumed at me as I went along up the road. It got me to wondering, “what the heck was that about?” I reviewed myself and could not think of how I had deeply offended him that would provoke this level of response. I have had my share of irate and rather crazy people on the road. I’ve had a young man get out of his car and threatened to fight me while I was pumping gas at a gas station. I’ve had a water bottle thrown at my car. I’ve had someone spit on my windshield. I’ve had a bike rider bang on